This pretty little grey-and-white Finch is common on the Chilian side of the Andes and throughout Patagonia, and also occurs in the Mendoza district. It is a tuneful bird, lively, social, and frolicsome in disposition; in autumn and winter uniting in flocks of from fifty to three or four hundred individuals; swift of flight, and when on the wing fond of pursuing its fellows and engaging in mock battles. The song of the male is very pleasing, the voice having more depth and mellowness than is usual with the smaller fringilline singers, which, as a rule, have thin, reedy, and tremulous notes. In summer it begins singing very early, even before the faintest indication of coming daylight is visible, and at that dark silent hour the notes may be heard at a great distance and sound wonderfully sweet and impressive. During the cold season, when they live in companies, the singing-time is in the evening, when the birds are gathered in some thick-foliaged tree or bush which they have chosen for a winter roosting-place. This winter-evening song is a hurried twittering, and utterly unlike the serene note of the male bird heard on summer mornings. A little while after sunset the flock bursts into a concert, which lasts several minutes, sinking and growing louder by turns, and during which it is scarcely possible to distinguish the notes of individuals. Then follows an interval of silence, after which the singing is again renewed very suddenly and as suddenly ended. For an hour after sunset, and when all other late singers, like the Mimus, have long been silent, this fitful impetuous singing is continued. Close by a house on the Rio Negro, in which I spent several months, there were three very large chañar bushes, where a multitude of Diuca Finches used to roost, and they never missed singing in the evening, however cold or rainy the weather happened to be. So fond were they of this charming habit, that when I approached the bushes or stood directly under them, the alarm caused by my presence would interrupt the performance only for a few moments, and presently they would burst into song again, the birds all the time swiftly pursuing each other amongst the foliage, often within a foot of my head.
The eggs, Darwin says (Zool. Voy. ‘Beagle,’ iii. p. 93), are pointed, oval, pale dirty green, thickly blotched with pale dull brown, becoming confluent and entirely coloured at the broad end.
[75.] CATAMENIA ANALIS (d’Orb. et Lafr.).
(RED-STAINED FINCH.)
Catamenia analis, Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 488 (Mendoza); Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 31; White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 599 (Catamarca). Spermophila analis, Sharpe, Cat. B. xii. p. 106.
Description.—Above clear grey; wing-feathers black, edged with grey; tail black, a large white blotch on the central part of each feather, the two middle feathers excepted; beneath grey, palest on the belly; under tail-coverts rufous: whole length 5·0 inches, wing 2·8, tail 2·2. Female, above obscure brownish buff, striped with blackish; beneath dirty white.
Hab. Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina.
Burmeister met with this Finch on the sierras near Mendoza, and White obtained a single specimen in Catamarca.